Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (RIMES)

RIMES came into existence as a multi-lateral technical cooperation platform formally on 30th April 2009 with the first batch of 5 countries signing the Cooperation Agreement on the RIMES for Africa and Asia in consonance with Articles 5 and 25 of the United Nations. RIMES Secretariat is established by the Republic of Maldives at Maldives Meteorological Services, Ministry of Environment and Transport, Male.  The RIMES Programme Unit and the RIMES Regional Facility are located at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Campus in Pathumthani, Near Bangkok, Thailand.

RIMES had dedicated its efforts to build institutional structures for holistically dealing all aspects of multi-hazard and climate risk management for bringing a major shift to make all RIMES country partners fully disaster resilient by upgrading the early warning systems as per their national circumstances.

The RIMES council in its first meeting held on 30th April 2009 constituted an Executive Board to translate designated mandates into actionable initiatives.  Appreciating the prominence gained by India in the Indian Ocean region after the setting up of the state-of-the art Tsunami Warning Centre (NTWC) at the ESSO-INCOIS, Hyderabad, and the associated professional accomplishments, India has been elected to the Chair of the RIMES Executive Board.  With the clearance of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Government of India, Dr Shailesh Nayak, Secretary to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, accepted the Chair of the RIMES Executive Board. 

Union Cabinet has approved the Cooperation Agreement with the RIMES on 7th December, 2010 and India formally joined the RIMES family on 24th Feb., 2011 by signing the Agreement.  RIMES Executive Council has elected India as its Chairman with all other  member states/countries as members.

 The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, UK, has signed an MOU with RIMES to support for building country specific Early Warning Systems under its umbrella.

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